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“No, but I have to go through with this! My face is on the billboards and in magazines. Gettin’ Hitched Honeymoon starts filming the day after tomorrow, and we film the reunion show in a few weeks! All the girls will be there. I have to be there. Married.” Her cheeks got hot and she felt dizzy. “There’s no getting out of it now!”
Someone knocked on the door, and Lexie about jumped out of her stupid dress. “Fifteen minutes.”
“You have to tell them.”
That was the right thing to do, but facing the director and producer and telling them that she couldn’t go through with the wedding they’d spent big money to bankroll—all because she’d said yes at the final barn-burning ceremony—made her vision go black around the edges. “I can’t.”
Then her best friend held out her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
“How?” Of the two of them, Marie had always been quicker on her feet. Lexie was the planner. She’d learned years ago that acting on impulse usually backfired. Sometimes with dangerous consequences.
“I’ll tell them you need to go to the bathroom.” Marie paused, and Lexie could almost see the scheme coming together in her brain. “You’ll need money. All I have is twenty bucks.”
Lexie patted her left breast. On the rare occasion when she couldn’t carry a purse, her DDD bra came in handy. “I got a Visa.”
“What else?”
“Driver’s license and spearmint Tic Tacs.”
“My car is right by the elevator in the parking garage.”
“You have a MINI Cooper!”
“No one will suspect it for the getaway car.” Marie found a piece of paper and pen on a housekeeping cart and handed them to Lexie. “All we have to do is get to it without raising suspicion.”
“Then what?”
Without missing a beat, the master schemer said, “I’ll call Jimmy. Let’s hope like hell he isn’t buzzing tourists around the Space Needle and can fly you out of here ASAP.”
It was crazy, but so was marrying a man she’d known for ten weeks, spent maybe a combined total of twelve hours with, and didn’t love. It was impulsive. She didn’t like to act on impulse, but it seemed like the only way out. She grabbed the pen before she changed her mind and wrote a quick note to her parents and an apology to Pete. “This is probably the worst mess either of us have been in.”
Marie grinned like when they’d been fifteen and running from the greenskeeper at Broadmoor. “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”
The production crew kept such a tight watch over everything, Lexie was almost certain the plan would fail, but luckily they’d made it to the elevator without being seen. Her luck held as Marie called Jimmy, who was about to take flight from the Lake Union dock.
“Where’s he headed?” Lexie asked.
“Canada.” Marie dropped her phone in a cup holder. “He didn’t say where. I imagine somewhere in Vancouver. Probably one of those swanky lodges or a lake with waterfront cabins.”
Again, luck was on Lexie’s side. Her father was Canadian and she had dual citizenship. She had an enhanced driver’s license, and a swanky little cabin sounded like heaven.
The most difficult part had been fitting into Marie’s MINI Cooper. She owed her friend big-time. Jimmy, too.
The seaplane lifted from Lake Union, and Lexie didn’t even try to get up. She stared at the dome light above her head, aware that she wasn’t alone. Besides Jimmy, there was someone else onboard. Someone who wore big leather loafers without socks. She didn’t bother to even turn to look up past the man’s shoes; she was too busy trying not to get sick. “I can’t believe I just did that.” She pulled her hand from within the three-tier, chapel-length veil and placed it on her forehead. Everything about Gettin’ Hitched had been planned and organized and controlled. Everything from the number of phone calls she could make from the pig-shaped phone in the Hitchin’ House, to her My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding–style dress. The producers had wanted everything to be tacky. If Lexie hadn’t been so fixated on winning, she would have seen the stereotypical portrayal of farmers, and if she hadn’t let her competitive side give her tunnel vision, she would have done something to get kicked off by the third episode.
If there was one thing Lexie avoided, it was tacky. She’d been raised to turn in horror and shield her eyes from tackiness. In her mother’s world, tacky was right up there with tying a bandanna around her face and not shaving her armpits. Or worse, wearing white shoes before Easter. It just wasn’t done.
The plane leveled off, and her stomach settled. She struggled to sit up and had to roll one way, then the other, like a beetle trapped on its back.
“Are you okay, Lex?” Jimmy asked through the earphones.
“I’ve been better.” She managed to scoot herself up and rest against the fuselage. The boning in her dress poked her ribs and pushed her breasts together. Her Louboutin satin-and-crystal stilettos hurt her feet. She was lucky that she hadn’t twisted an ankle as she’d sprinted toward the Sea Hopper. She was an expert at running in five-inch heels and considered it an art form. For several years now, she’d run the Heels for Meals, a one-mile race to benefit local animal shelters, and she’d run after a pickpocket in Italy, but she’d never run on a swaying dock.
The damn crown on her head pulled her hair and hurt her scalp as the full ramifications of what she’d just done rushed at her. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Her family would have discovered her gone by now. She’d run away from the mess she’d made and implicated Marie in her escape. She’d left her family to deal with it.
Because she was a coward.
“Need
